Serena Williams breezes past Maria Sharapova

Then there was the fact that the 21-time major victor entered the match with a 25-4 record in grand slam semi-finals, which did little to inspire confidence that the 2012 Wimbledon finalist Radwanska could provide an upset.

Serena Williams’ domination of the most one-sided rivalry in tennis continued as the American hammered Maria Sharapova to reach the Australian Open semi-finals.

Williams said she couldn’t explain her 11-year domination of Sharapova she has won 19 of their 21 meetings overall except to say she rises to the big challenges. “I think that makes me play better”.

Radwanska finally got on the board in the opening game of the second set before breaking the Williams serve for 3-3.

Williams called out the physio before the start of the second set but when play resumed it was Sharapova who struggled, as she was broken in the second game and then again in the fourth, with Williams storming into a 5-0 lead.

“He always makes you play your best”.

With the win, Williams reached her 26th grand slam final and fifth in the past six majors.

The world No. 1 faces either seventh seed Angelique Kerber of Germany or the unseeded Johanna Konta in Saturday’s finale. “So I think it will be a long match and it will be a good match to see where I am”.

Growing into the match, Williams piled the pressure on Sharapova’s serve but the Russian came from 0-40 down in the eighth game to scrape a gutsy hold.

If you blinked you might have missed Tuesday’s women’s action at the Australian Open, where the Serena vs. Maria “blockbuster” missed the “block” and was simply a “bust”, and Aggie Radwanska likewise made mincemeat of an opponent.

“She played quite explosive”.

Moreover, Radwanska enters this semi-final clash riding a 12-match winning streak, that extends back to her winning the WTA Finals Singapore at the end of last season, as well as the Shenzhen Open tournament at the beginning of the new year.

The animated top seed broke back and sent down a 202km/h serve, the fastest of the tournament, as things started to get interesting with Williams leading 4-3. “I thought at times, you know, when I got in the rally I wasn’t moving forward, wasn’t cutting the angles off enough”, Sharapova said.

When it was put to her that there is clearly a big gap between her and Sharapova, Williams said: “There is”.

The world No. 1 will next meet the No. 4 seed Radwanska who rolled past Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1, 6-3.

“I think so. There was just no mistake”, she said. “I was just standing there kind of watching her playing”. In domination mode, Serena has cruised, dropping zero sets (and dropping no more than five games), finding her compass with her shots and averaging barely an hour on the court.

Williams was impeccable in the first set, smashing 18 winners and just four unforced errors while losing only seven points.

Making the semis was still a good result for Radwanska, who had done so just three other times in her career – at Wimbledon in 2013 and 2015, and here in Melbourne in 2014. What ever happens I’m happy to come out to play another final.